A gun rights group is vowing to fight
the executive actions announced Tuesday by President Barack Obama as conservatives spoke out against what they see as a planned gun grab.
"We want to see cutbacks and no funding for really any of these executive actions the President took," Erich Pratt, executive director of Gun Owners of America, told
The Washington Post. "We'll be working with lawmakers."
The group says it is even more uncompromising that the National Rifle Association, which called Obama's announcement "political rhetoric" and an "attempt to distract attention away from his lack of a coherent strategy to keep the American people safe from terrorist attack."
Still, the Post noted, the NRA did not lay out plans to block funding as Gun Owners of America did.
The NRA did condemn the actions in a four-minute video it gave to Fox News in which Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre warned, "When politicians talk about fixing the broken background check system, don't buy it."
LaPierre said his group has fought for 20 years to get more felons and mentally disturbed individuals entered into the background check system.
"If you cast a net and the fish swim through the holes, you don't need a bigger net, you need tighter holes," LaPierre said, "but when it comes to a background check system that's missing the names of millions of prohibited people, the politicians don't want to fix it they don't tell you the truth. Instead, the only thing the average American has heard about background checks is the absolute fallacy that what we need is more."
Here's what several conservatives had to say about the actions:
George Will: Obama is "creating new crimes. Again this is another usurpation of the Article 1 powers of the Congress. … If the president wants to reduce the number of guns in America he should stop talking," since stocks in gun companies rise every time he does.
Charles Krauthammer: "I think it's a trivial change. … It's not going to have any effect, would not have had any effect on any of the mass shootings over the last several years. And yet Obama is committed. It's kind of delusional."
Utah Rep. Jason Chaffetz: If Obama "is he truly concerned about public safety, start with Fast and Furious when he knowingly willingly gave 1,000 weapons to the drug cartels. … They had 66,000 people at Homeland Security, people that were here illegally got caught, convicted. And instead of deporting them, what did he do? Released them back out into the public. I guarantee you if we go back through those, many of those would be involved in gun crimes."
Michigan Rep. Justin Amash:
Dark horse GOP presidential candidate Jim Gilmore, an NRA board member, tweeted a picture of himself in a gun store:
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: "He is obsessed with undermining the Second Amendment. He is obsessed with the burdening law-abiding citizens who are going to follow the law no matter what it is."
Businessman Donald Trump: You are supposed to get together and pass a law. But he doesn't want to do that. He wants to go back and play golf."
New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie: "It's not constitutional. I'm confident the courts will reject his attempts to do that."
Texas Sen. Ted Cruz: "Those orders aren't worth the paper they are written on because come January 7th, 2017 they are going away."
Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush: "Liberals like Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton seize on every opportunity to advance a gun-grabbing agenda. After the ISIS-inspired terrorist attack in San Bernardino, Obama and Clinton called for sweeping gun control provisions that would trample on the Second Amendment."
Former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee: "You say if we can save one life we should. Well, apply 5th & 14th amendments to the unborn & save 4,000 lives a day."
Businesswoman Carly Fiorina:
Dr. Ben Carson:
House Speaker Paul Ryan: "His words and actions amount to a form of intimidation that undermines liberty."
Democratic West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin: "Instead of taking unilateral executive action, the president should work with Congress and the American people, just as I've always done, to pass the proposals he announced today. Legislation and consensus is the correct approach.
Former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, running for president as a Democrat, took on Cruz's attack on Obama:
Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton:
© 2024 Newsmax. All rights reserved.